by Rev. Bill Gupton

Meetings of the Board of Trustees, the Worship Committee, and other groups (including Spirit in Life groups, committee chairs, ad-hoc planning teams, even our Heritage Acres Board) in the first few weeks of January have left me energetic and enthused for 2018. I believe this is going to be a very transformative year for this community we hold dear.

Your lay leaders and professional staff have acknowledged that the ever-evolving entity we call Heritage is growing – perhaps more quickly than we have been able to adjust. Creative short-term solutions have been put in place (see article elsewhere in this newsletter) while bold long-term changes are being discussed. Among those, we seek to add a couple of part-time, but very important, staff positions later in 2018. We recognize we need a staff person who is committed to caring for our building and grounds, as well as someone to focus on the many and varied needs of members, from the moment they first visit, to when they join, to when we honor them for decades-long commitments to our church.

Speaking of which, join me on February 4 as we celebrate the 20-year membership anniversary of five dedicated church members. And speaking of members, don’t look now, but with our winter new member ceremony, Heritage Church adult membership is now up to 172. Even with the occasional member departure, our membership is now consistently in the 170s (not to mention the scores of children and youth who comprise many of our member families).

I am also delighted by the growth in interest in our pioneering end-of-life ministry, and in our green burial initiative, Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary. Thanks to incredible generosity during 2017, we are optimistic that 2018 will be the year we acquire land and begin operations for Heritage Acres.

Be on the lookout for some great new adult education opportunities in the coming months. The UUA is working on a new version of “Building Your Own Theology” that we are considering. Meanwhile in March, I will be offering a four-week session called “Believe” that will examine Unitarian Universalist beliefs. Ongoing film series will help us learn to confront racism, and confront fears of our own mortality.

Several fun events will be sprinkled throughout the spring. Have you noticed the return of Dining for Dollars? This is a great way to meet and socialize with others in the church, while supporting “the cause.” And mark your calendars now for the return of March Money Madness (on St. Patrick’s Day), as well as a re-imagined event called the Gala of Benevolent Deities, on April 21. The latter just happens to coincide with my 60th birthday weekend!

Heritage Church: A place to have fun, enjoy community, explore your beliefs and grow your spirit. As my colleague Rev. Leslie often says, “Won’t you join us?”

Namasté,
Rev. Bill

by Rev. Leslie Woodward

By the time you read this, Christmas 2017 will have passed into memory and we will be poised on the brink of 2018. Many of us get a chance to pause right before the New Year before plunging back into work or school or simply surviving.

This can be a fertile time, a time that songwriter Carrie Newcomer calls “the beautiful not yet.” What are you hoping to see happen in the New Year? What are you willing to work for? How will you take care of yourself and the ones you love?

In this beautiful-not-yet time, know that your church community is here for you. We will laugh, cry, sing, and pray with you. We will hold you when you are hurting, rejoice with you when you are glad, celebrate with you when that beautiful-not-yet time comes to fruition.

The New Year is a great time to form new intentions. Form the intention to come to church every Sunday this year. (Yes, we know that this is nigh on impossible for most of us, but form that intention anyway.) We need to you be part of our circle of sorrow, circle of sadness, circle of anger, circle of joy. We need you to hold us as we will hold you.

May your New Year be merry and bright.

Rev. Leslie

January, 2018

by Donna Buckley

Happy New Year to Everyone! At the risk of sounding trite…it’s a time for new beginnings and renewed enthusiasm. Our ever-busy and active community continues with many opportunities to be involved. Here’s a peak at what the Board is planning in the months ahead.

We are very excited about a new idea that came out of our collaborative meeting between the Board and the Committee on Ministry! How about freeing up some volunteer energy while also building community relationships? This could be accomplished by adding two, part time staff positions – a Membership Professional who could coordinate volunteers, greeters, ushers, checking in with visitors and generally foster and enhance community relationships to name a few duties (https://www.uua.org/careers/membership) … and a Church Sexton/Building Caretaker who could be responsible for cleaning, routine maintenance, repairs and proactive care for our building. This is food for thought and discussion in the following months as we prepare our budget and stewardship drive. We welcome your comments and questions. Please feel free to talk with anyone on the Board or Committee in Ministry.

We are forming a Security Team to help develop plans and procedures with already-established protocols. Trainings in safety will be offered through the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office as well as other organizations.

Dining for Dollars is returning! This is a fun way to participate in community while generating funds. Someone volunteers to host a dinner or event, a ticket is sold and the proceeds go to the church. Julie Kane is coordinating this effort – so please let her know if you are interested in hosting a dinner. Look for signups later this month.

Other Fun(d) raising ideas in the works are our Gala (non-auction), plant sale and Everything but the House auction. Stay tuned for more details! In the meantime – stay warm!

Donna

January 2018.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

I don’t know about you, but I am happy to put the year 2017 in the rear-view mirror! It was a challenging year on many fronts, for many of us, but with the hope and anticipation that is inherent in this season, we now look forward to a New Year filled with the promise of positive change and progress.

As inheritors of a faith tradition that calls us to work for “justice, equity and compassion in human relations,” we know that all three of those qualities were in short supply during the past year – and thus we renew our commitment to make all three more manifest in 2018. I hope you will join me, early in this new year but later in this month, at the Cincinnati Women’s March (https://www.facebook.com/events/134129797272058/). I hope you will be sure to register to vote – now – and then vote, both in spring primaries and in the November election. I hope you will make a new year’s resolution to commit to one new social justice project or activity – and take a friend, neighbor or family member with you. I hope you will take advantage of the amazing educational opportunities Heritage Church continually provides, throughout the year, in the form of film series like our Anti-Racism Film Series (returning Jan. 5) and our Death Positive Film Series (returning Jan. 26). I hope you will become part of our Social Justice Collaborative (the next meeting is Sunday, Jan. 7, at 9 a.m.).

Personally, there are other things I find myself eagerly anticipating as 2018 begins. This year, Jennifer and I will celebrate with our son Patrick as he graduates from The Ohio State University. When we moved to Cincinnati, and to Heritage Church, Patrick was entering first grade. Now, he will be entering the “real world” with many possibilities (and challenges) of adulthood awaiting. Throughout the past 16 years, Heritage Church has been our rock – a steady, grounding presence in our lives that has held us and supported us through both joy and sorrow. For that – for you – we are eternally grateful.

There’s one thing more I want to lift up, as I look ahead to 2018. Many of you know that creating a natural burial sanctuary has been a dream of mine for some time, dating as far back as my first sabbatical here at Heritage. Now, thanks to the incredible generosity of 25 Founders, our church’s green burial initiative, Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary (www.heritageacresmemorial.org), is rapidly moving toward becoming a reality. Our Heritage Acres Board (myself, Donna Buckley, Heather Wasco, Richard Asimus and Joyce Richter) has declared 2018 “The Year We Get Land.” It is our fond hope – and it is a realistic hope – that Heritage Acres will be open by the end of the new year! We look forward to providing an environmentally sustainable, ecologically grounded, natural burial alternative for the Tri-State region that will outlive all of us, and speak for generations to the principles that this church and our faith hold dear.

May 2018 be a year of change and transformation. May we experience both new beginnings and a return to simpler, more compassionate traditions. Here’s to a peaceful, loving, inclusive, happy New Year!

Namasté,
Rev. Bill

January 2018.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

Warm fires. Friendly faces. Eggnog. Carols. The smell of green branches when all outside is gray. These are some of the things that make the season, and its memories.

At our church, we have a few traditions that you will find sprinkled throughout this month’s newsletter: The Clara Barton Guild dinner. My family’s Holiday Open House. Christmas Caroling for all ages. And of course, our annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. That night, our sanctuary will be filled with folks who come for the wonderful music, the glow of the candles, and most of all the warmth and spirit of community. I hope you will be among them, that evening, and that you will also partake of the many other opportunities to celebrate the season with the Heritage family this year. (There are even two worship services on December 24!)

As we celebrate the holiday season, however, don’t forget that this time of year can be bittersweet for many people. Reminders of loss – whether recent or long-ago – can be painful. Loneliness can be profound. Shorter daylight hours and colder temperatures challenge even the most cheerful among us. Let us remember to be gentle and compassionate to one another. Be sure to offer an extra hug, an extra smile, and to go the extra mile, not only with those in our Heritage community, but also co-workers, people on the streets, and strangers whom you meet in the store (you will be in the store, I am sure). Offer the Love that is the Spirit of our church to everyone, of every age, this holiday season.

Happy Holidays! I’ll see you at church!

Namaste,
Rev. Bill

by Rev. Bill Gupton

Many of you probably don’t even know that from 1999-2002, prior to coming to Heritage Church, I was the minister of a small, also historically Universalist, UU congregation in North Olmsted, Ohio. At some point during that tenure – some November, no doubt – I was handed a piece of paper with a reading on it titled “Blessings.” I still have it, lovingly filed away under “Thanksgiving,” and thus I happened across it this week as I was preparing for upcoming services. While the numbers it quotes may have changed slightly in the course of the last two decades, I submit to you that the spirit of the text (as well as the profound inequities it references) remain as true today as they were back at the “turn of the century.”

I offer it to you as you prepare for the season of Thanksgiving.

“Blessings”

If you can attend a church, mosque, synagogue or meeting house without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death – you are more blessed today than three million of your fellow human beings.

If you woke up this morning enjoying good, reasonable, or even decent health – consider that more than a million people on this planet will die of various diseases this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation – remember in your prayers the 500 million people in the world who have.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep – you are richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, or in your wallet, or spare change in your pocket or a dish somewhere – you are among the world’s top 8% in wealth.

If you can hold someone’s hand, hug them, or even reach out to touch them gently on the shoulder – do so. You are blessed to be able to offer love, support, and a healing touch.

If you can read this message, know that someone is thinking of you – and furthermore, that more than two billion of your human sisters and brothers cannot read at all.

Count your blessings – and pass along to others as many of them as you can. Bless the world.

In love and gratitude for all that we share in this richly blessed community which we have inherited, and which we call our Heritage –

Namaste,
Rev. Bill

November 2017.

by Rev. Bill Gupton

It should come as no surprise that throughout history, at least here in the northern hemisphere, the time of year we are now entering has been associated with death and dying, with transitions, with the changes that come naturally as part of the cycle of life. The leaves are beginning to change colors and let go, dropping from the glorious trees for which they have spent the past several months drinking in the sun’s energy. The sun itself is getting lower on the horizon, and offering noticeably less light with each passing day. Animals are making their preparations for the winter, busily burying nuts, migrating, and so on. One very special, very old cat that hangs around outside our house seems to be preparing for what could be her last difficult winter season.

Culturally, we celebrate Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and other death-related holidays. Skeletons and other images profusely populate our public gathering places, seemingly having taken over places like Kroger and Target, even the Post Office.

As many of you know, I have long been an active participant in the Death Positive movement, a loosely knit organization of folks seeking to help Westerners and Americans in particular reclaim a positive relationship with death, integrating it into our finite lives in a healthy and positive way. (The term “Death Positive” is also a pun, pointing to the fact that each of us has an inherited gene that gives us the medical condition of being “death positive.”)

My interest in this aspect of human existence brings many events and opportunities for education and conversation to our Heritage community, particularly at this time of year. You might want to come to church for an informal conversation about death and dying at our Death Café Cincinnati on October 30 (https://deathcafe.com/deathcafe/5199/). You might be interested in viewing (or re-viewing) the outstanding 1971 film Harold and Maude, this month’s offering in our Death Positive Film Series, on October 27. You might want to check out the latest news about the green burial sanctuary we are starting, Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary, at https://www.heritageacresmemorial.org/. You’ll be hearing more about Heritage Acres at church in the next few weeks. And certainly, don’t miss our deeply moving All Souls Sunday worship service, when we lift up and honor those loved ones who have died in the past year, on November 5.

I also want to let you know that in mid-September, I—along with a few other members of the Heritage Church End-of-Life Ministry Team—took an intensive, 30-hour training seminar that ended with our certification as “death midwives.” As such, we are available to offer compassionate, spiritual, holistic care and comfort to those in our congregation, and their loved ones, who are dying. In fact, the church’s End-of-Life Ministry Team, now composed of roughly a dozen profoundly caring individuals with a wide range of skills and training, stands ready to assist families facing life’s final transition before, during and after the death of a loved one. This is just one of the many unique ministries that sets Heritage Church apart from most other Unitarian Universalist—or non-UU—congregations.

It is a blessing and a privilege to serve as your Senior Minister!

Namaste,
Rev. Bill

October 2017.